Endless Love

"Did you make it up?” my eldest sister, Sylvia, asked. By older, I meant by barely a year, but she was constantly reminding me of the factor, which irritated me and my brother to no end. Compared to me and my twin, though, she got Dad’s blonde hair and blue eyes, rather than Mom’s red hair and green eyes. She was pretty, gorgeous even. However, she was a major bitch and she knew it, so she uses her looks to her advantage to get whatever the Hell she wants, whether it is guys, money, sex or drugs.

“Make what up?” I asked, not looking at her until I was done tying the sash around my yellow V-neck. The bow came to rest right above the waist line of my black jeans. My eyes scanned her body, taking in what she was wearing: light blue short shorts, a low white V-neck and high heels. Finally my eyes met hers, one thin eyebrow becoming raised as I waited for her response.

“You know, being attacked.” She made air quotes around the word, putting a damper on my good mood.

“No, Via, she did not make it up,” Austin declared as he walked into my room, coming to stand next to me, facing toward our sister. He reached over to pull up the sleeve of my shirt, revealing the purple handprint etched into my skin. “I highly doubt that Autumn made this herself. Besides, even if she did, she is not a liar.”

“If that’s the case, what did he look like, Autumn?” Sylvia sneered. She hated to be proved wrong. Unfortunately, that would never change. And apparently neither would her dislike for me. It was abnormal how much hatred a sister could have for another when that sister did nothing wrong, except be born.

“Sorry, Sylvia, but I don’t know. His face was shadowed by his hood,” I responded, knowing full well that she would never believe a word I said. She would believe Austin if it didn’t have anything to do with me. She loved Austin.

“Whatever. Mom said you got a ride from the neighbor,” she said, changing the subject. “I will bet that he only did it because he felt sorry for you, not for his benefit or anything and certainly not because you’re pretty, because you aren’t.” The smirk that slowly appeared on her lips was hopeful. She wanted to hurt me, bad.

I shrugged, never taking my eyes from hers. If she wanted to bait me as a liar, she would have a hard time. Liars never made eye contact. “I honestly do not care what you think.” Finally, I broke contact and walked out of the room, down the stairs, grabbing my boots along the way. Once downstairs, I sat onto our black leather couch and slipped my boots on, tucking the bottoms of my pants into them before zipping them shut.

“You look ridiculous,” Sylvia stated when she walked past me. “Ten dollars says that the new guy talks to me first.”

I rolled my eyes, opening my mouth to speak, to raise the bet to twenty dollars, but Austin beat me to it, “Would you shut up already? We get it, you’re jealous of her. Moving on.”

“I am not—”

“Sylvia,” he growled, putting a stop to her argument right away.

I stood up from the couch, turning to face my brother, a smile curving onto my lips. It never failed to shock me, the resemblance we had to each other. If he had been female, we would have been identical.

His lighter red hair was straight and short, his eyes a darker green than my own. His skin was a light olive color, matching mine. Despite those resemblances, that was where it ended. He was all male, with a six pack of abs, large biceps, finely chiseled jaw and facial hair. Although, he was taller than me by a few inches, him being six foot, and me being five, nine.

I, on the other hand, had the obvious body of a female. Curves were placed in the right places. I had larger breasts that stuck out from my slim body. My face had the “innocent” look with big eyes and full, pouty lips. “Thanks, Austin.”

“Sure, now let’s head out. Are you walking today?” he asked, concern coloring his tone. Even if I hadn’t gotten attacked yesterday, he was always worried about me; especially at night, when I walked alone in the dark. He would rather me get a ride with somebody.

“Yeah. Don’t worry, Austin, I will be fine. Besides, I have my pocket knife on me in case of an emergency.” I leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to his cheek before sauntering toward the door, where Sylvia was waiting impatiently.

“It’s about damn time,” she grumbled, walking out into the warmer winter weather. We were lucky to live in Tucson, Arizona, where, right now, it was fifty degrees in the middle of winter. It would suck to live in a place such as Ohio right about now.

I glanced over, noticing the guy from last night. He was currently locking up his house, oblivious to our presence. Sylvia was staring at him, practically drooling in his existence, making me bite back a laugh. When he looked over, his eyes caught mine and a large grin appeared on his face, stealing my breath.

“Hey!” he yelled, starting across the lawn toward us. I rocked back and forth on my heels, burying my hands in my pockets to wait for the show to start. I wanted my ten dollars, right now. Sylvia just didn’t realize that she’d be losing it this soon.

“Hello,” Sylvia purred once he finally reached the three of us. His eyes never left mine, but she didn’t notice this.

“Excuse me, but I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to Miss Gorgeous over here,” he replied, gesturing a hand toward me.

Sylvia shot me an angry scowl that I returned with a smirk. “Pay up, sister,” I said, putting my hand out. When she shoved the ten dollar bill in my hand, I pocketed it before she could retrieve it. The guy whose name I didn’t catch was looking between us, confused.

“Hmm,” Austin mumbled, sizing up the male as he stepped forward, in front of me. Purposely blocking the guy from seeing me. Annoyance clouded my features for a moment, shocking me. There was never a time that I got like this with a guy, not even with my ex-boyfriend. Arms came up to cross tightly over his chest, hands curling into fists. “Who are you?”

“My name is Fallon,” he replied, staring at Austin with a weird look on his face. “Is there a reason why you are shielding your sister from me?”

Austin didn’t answer. Instead he moved forward, completely blocking me from view. A small sound of protest left my lips, once again surprising me. With a roll of my eyes, I moved around Austin, toward Fallon, who shot me another grin that I returned with a sexy smile. “Since we have yet to do any form of introductions, I will present them. This is my sister Sylvia, my brother Austin and I am Autumn.”

“You will do best to remember my name,” Sylvia said, once again butting into the conversation.

Fallon barely glanced at her, but when he did his eyes didn’t stay for very long. “No thanks.” The wind blew its slightly cooler breeze, tossing my hair over my shoulder for a moment. Fallon moved closer, catching a strand of it between his index finger and thumb, appearing to admire the color for a moment before dropping it. “I can see why your mother named you Autumn. Your hair matches the color of changing leaves.”

“Hey, man, don’t touch my sister,” Austin suddenly said through gritted teeth. I shot him an annoyed look.

“Austin—”

Sylvia took that moment to slide up next to Fallon, shoving me out of the way with her hip. “Hello there, handsome. I’m the older, more mature sister,” she purred, pulling her shirt down so that it showed more of her cleavage. It was practically popping out of her shirt.

Once again, I rolled my eyes. She was ridiculous; there was no doubt about that. And for once in my life, I wanted to strangle her for attempting to get a guy’s attention away from me. Since she and I were younger, and had gone through puberty, we had gotten guy’s attention, but I always got more of it. She was the jealous bitchy sister who constantly told lies about me to get them away, but luckily, I had already been friends with those guys, so it didn’t matter what I had done and hadn’t done.

When I had gotten my first boyfriend, she showed the ultimate betrayal of a sister and slept with him. The guy, whose name was Rob, I forgave because he told me about it the next day and was drunk out of his mind, barely able to stay awake.

“More mature,” Austin said, interrupting my thoughts, “and yet I don’t see Autumn pulling her shirt down so that her cleavage is popping out.” He threw a disgusted look my way, forcing a smile out of me.

“What did you say to me, little brother?” Sylvia growled, turning narrowed eyes onto him.

“You heard me,” he shot back. “You’re a God damn slut who can’t stand when Autumn gets attention from other guys. You’re ridiculous and really need to learn to share. Did Mommy not teach you how, because I know she did?”

Before things got ugly, I moved away, declaring, “I am leaving. See you two at school.” I started toward the sidewalk, suddenly hearing footsteps following closely behind. I figured it was Austin, but when a hand closed around my wrist, stopping me in my tracks and sending a jolt of … something up my arm, I glanced back. Silver eyes met mine, setting me up for speechless.

“Let me drive you, okay?” he whispered, not allowing my brother or sister to hear, who were currently arguing in the driveway anyway. They wouldn’t have heard to begin with, but whatever.

“No, thank you.” I yanked my wrist away, rubbing the spot where his fingers had been. “I can handle myself and don’t need some rich player to tell me otherwise. Besides, you’d probably just break my heart in an instant, use me for sex, and then leave me like I know you do to hundreds of other girls.”

“How do you know any of this?” he hissed, anger seeping behind his happy tone. “You don’t know me, not at all. I’m not rich, my parents are. Big whoop, it isn’t like I use that to my advantage twenty four, seven. Sure, I sleep with girls, I’m a guy. Your brother probably does it all of the time. But they know that they’re only getting sex. I tell them that, no strings attached. They understand. Maybe your brother doesn’t “use” girls like that, maybe he has actual relationships, but with my history, you wouldn’t want a relationship. So before you accuse me of using people, get your facts straight,” he growled, throwing my words back in my face. He shook his head. “I thought you were different.” Without another word, he turned and left me standing there, feeling like a complete asshole.

I sighed before, once again, starting the walk to school. When I got there, maybe I would apologize. Maybe I would ask him to be friends. Maybe I would let him use me. Or maybe I was going to ignore the asshole next door, because that’s the type of person that I am. Never say that you were wrong, it can be used against you. Never apologize; it’s useless; you’d probably make that mistake later in life anyway. And friends? Friends deny the attraction between another friend, and that just wouldn’t be able to happen. Wait, what attraction? There is no attraction between us and there never will be.

"Dammit!" I snapped, wanting to shove my fist through something.